CBS News reports on a dust storm in Mongolia that is traveling across
China and into the US, The New York Times reports that Florida
may face a water deficit of 30% by the year 2020, and the New Orleans
paper, the Times Picayune, describes a "dead zone" in the Gulf
of Mexico that is as big as the state of New Jersey.

The proliferation of news stories such as these, along with the call for
the first full-scale scientific survey of the Earth's ecosystems, known
as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, inspired journalist Bill Moyers
and his team of award-winning producers to take a look at what is happening
to our planet and what we can do about it. Bill Moyers Reports: Earth
on Edge probes two of the most critical questions of the new century:
Will Earth continue to have the capacity to support the human species
and civilization? Moreover, what can we do to protect our life-support
system-the natural environment?

The two-hour documentary, which premieres on PBS June 19, 2001 at 8 p.m.
(check local listings), travels from the Kansas
prairie to the beautiful hills of South Africa's Cape of Good Hope, from
an ancient rain forest in British Columbia to the grasslands of Mongolia,
and into the sea and the coral reefs of Brazil. Earth on Edge provides
a close look at five ecosystems around the world, and describes the impact
of human activity on the environment as well as the kind of behavioral
changes that can restore it. But the time for change is running out.

"We are pushing our planet to the absolute limit of its ability to function,"
says Dr. Melanie Stiassny, one of the biologists interviewed,
whose findings suggest that Earth is approaching critical environmental
thresholds that may be irreversible. Also interviewed are Carl Safina,
founder of the National Audubon Society's Living Oceans Program;
Habiba Gitay, an ecologist at the Australian National University;
Michael Novacek, a paleontologist at the American Museum of
Natural History; and Adrian Forsyth, a tropical ecologist at
the Amazon Conservation Association. On its journey around the world,
Earth on Edge profiles individuals and programs that are confronting the
challenge head on, understanding that our lives depend on Earth's ecosystems
and that our energy, innovation, and dedication might help restore them.

KANSAS
In Kansan Charlie Melander's opinion, a farmer has an almost religious
relationship to the land. Charlie is trying to honor that connection by
farming in a way that will conserve the soil's nutrients and growing capacity
for future generations. For him, this means reducing the herbicides and
pesticides that he puts on his crops and using new farming techniques
that help keep the topsoil from blowing away. The first prairie farmers,
including Charlie's family who has been farming this land since the 1850s,
found virgin soil, rich in nutrients and good for crops. When they broke
the sod and tilled the ground, however, the land was exposed to drought
and wind. In less than two centuries, more than one-third of the original
topsoil on these prairies has blown away and half the nutrients have been
exhausted.

Charlie Melander

But Charlie is bucking the tide. He feels that heavy advertising and
government subsidies have distorted the economics of modern agriculture,
and provide a disincentive for sustainable farming. "I maintain that we
could change our environment almost overnight if suddenly we said we'll
reward less fuel usage, less herbicide usage, less fertilizer usage,"
Melander tells Moyers.

"Why should I care about how you farm out here, as long as I get the food
I need?" Moyers asks. "The equation's not that simple," Melander answers,
explaining that current farming practices may cause future generations
to suffer. "Whether you like it or not, you're going to be affected by
what we do or don't do," he cautions.

SOUTH AFRICA
In South Africa, the most pressing problem isn't water pollution, it's
water scarcity  an unintended consequence of human behavior. South
Africa's unique natural environment features plants  like the fynbos
 that thrive on very little water, suiting them perfectly to this
arid climate. When European colonists arrived in South Africa they set
out to recreate the forested landscape familiar from their homeland. They
scattered seeds for pine and eucalyptus that have grown into forests.
Today, these invasive trees are a threat to the human population, competing
for water by soaking up billions of gallons that once filled mountain
streambeds. Already, one-third of South Africans have an inadequate supply
of water.

South Africa's Working for Water Programme

Five years ago the government decided to combat the problem  the
invasive trees had to go. They have since trained 40,000 formerly unemployed
people to cut thousands of non-native trees down, restoring the precious
water that flows from the mountains to the rivers. Already, people who
live near the streams say that the water is flowing more strongly than
they have seen in 20 or 30 years. The Working
for Water Programme has successfully restored a precious resource
to thousands of South Africans.

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA
In Vancouver, British Columbia, an experimental collaboration joins one
of Canada's biggest timber companies, MacMillan Bloedel (now owned by
Weyerhauser), together with environmentalists and Canada's native people,
known as First Nations. Born of intense conflict among the partners, this
commercial venture now seeks to harvest timber in a way that simultaneously
protects the environment and the employment opportunities for First Nations
and other loggers.

Clayoquot Sound, Britsh Coloumbia, Canada

By selectively felling trees instead of clear-cutting, and by using helicopters
to fly the logs out instead of building roads for transport, the innovative
timber operation is designed to mimic the forest's natural processes,
allowing the ancient rainforests and the wildlife they support to survive.
The new company, called Iisaak, must make a profit if it is to survive
in the long term, but if these methods prove economically viable, limited
logging in the forest will be sustainable for the future.

MONGOLIA
In Mongolia, nomadic herders have grazed large numbers of livestock on
Mongolia's grassland for thousands of years. Rotating their animals over
vast pastures in complex seasonal patterns, herders like Naisurendorj
have anchored their country's economy without degrading its ecosystems.
Recently, however, political and economic changes in the country have
tripled the number of people who depend on the grasslands; moreover herd
size is increasing to support a growing cashmere export industry; and
fewer herders are willing to rotate their flocks from one pasture to another,
an ancient practice that allows the grass to recover year after year.
The grasses cannot withstand the assault and each year the plains become
more and more like desert.

Naisurendorj

The effects of overgrazing are already apparent: as rangeland ecologist
Maria Fernandez Gimenez explains, "At some point there's a limit to what
the land can support. So how do you know when you're approaching the limit?
That's what we're trying to figure out now." Without intervention, Mongolian
scientists predict that the pastures may be exhausted within ten years.
Incredibly, even a country with few people  like Mongolia 
can lose a balance that supported it for centuries. But there is still
time to save the largest stretch of grassland we have left.

BRAZIL
Brazil is lush, but competing human demands on its natural resources are
threatening the well-being of humans even in a place that looks like paradise.
The coastal reef at Tamandare is a magnet for recreation and for fishers,
but the beauty and the bounty of its waters mask the critical needs of
the undersea environment. The reef was dying, a victim of overfishing,
tourism, and the destruction of the mangrove forests inland on which they
depend.

Beatrice Ferreira and Mauro Maida

Marine biologists Beatrice Ferreira and Mauro Maida persuaded the Brazilian
government to close off 1,000 acres of this endangered reef in hopes that
the coral and marine life would recover. The experimental project improved
the situation almost immediately. After only eight months, there was a
substantial increase in the number of octopus, lobster, and other marine
life. But for how long? Developers are investing millions to transform
the region into a tourist mecca, accelerating the destruction of the mangrove
swamp and the reefs that support Tamandare's coastal culture.

The scientific data that was the basis of the reporting in Earth on
Edge can now be accessed by going to EarthTrends,
a new web site that contains case studies, maps, data, and more about
ecosystems around the world.